Weeping for Yesterday
by Thessaly
Summary: [Sweeney Todd] The beggar woman rarely has good dreams.
1. Sweeney Todd

I don't own anything in here; it all belongs to Stephen Sondheim, and the voices to the wonderfully talented original cast. And the blocking is courtesy John Doyle. Speaking of which, everybody in the NYC area should absolutely, definitely, see the Sweeney that is playing right now. It is brilliant - absorbingly, theatrically brilliant. As for this story, criticism would be much appreciated since I'm not terribly comfortable with angst and interior monologue, especially when the subject has "got wandering wits". Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, per-lease...!

The beggar woman is dreaming. It's the only luxury she can afford. More often than not she wakes screaming, seeing a masked face descending towards her, or a woman with a meat cleaver. Or she just dreams of pain, scudding through her body like the waves the break against the St. Katherine's Docks. And then she wakes, crying and retching , and has to lie still in the alley or doorway or corner, while the tearless sobs run through her and she tries to remember what she lost. She never can.

Sometimes, if she's very lucky, she will have good dreams. Like this one. She is sitting in a little room, a lamp burning beside her on the table, reading. She can see her hands, which are pale and smooth, and have a wedding ring; and there is a drift of yellow hair over her shoulders. The beggar woman can't read, can't remember a time when her hands were not scratched and filthy. Her hair, so far as she knows, is dirt-coloured. But this is a dream and in a detached way, she knows this is her.

In her dream, she stands up and walks to the window and looks out over the roofs and smokestacks of London, up to the gray clouds and the city birds that swoop and call. She hears a door open and close. "Lucy?" says a man's voice, deep and warm.

She doesn't answer because the woman in the dream _is_ named Lucy and he knows she is there. He comes into the room, crosses it, and puts his hands around her waist, burying his face in her hair. "Lucy?" he murmurs.

She unwraps his hands and spreads one out; his hands fascinate her. They are large, hanging from sinewy, capable wrists. The fingers are long and tapering and almost beautiful. He twists his hand about hers and squeezes. She turns in his the circle of his arms to look up at him and smile. She doesn't say anything; she doesn't need to. He is a big man, tall and not fat, but just – solid. His eyes, in a somewhat forbidding face, are light blue, and warm when they look down at her now. He lifts one hand and touches her cheek. He always treats her as though she were made of glass, or vapour, and might shatter or float away in a chance breeze. He leans forward and kisses her, gently. "My reason and my life," he whispers, like the refrain to a very old song, and kisses her again. "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

The beggar woman awakes with a sore feeling around her half-forgotten heart. She rarely has good dreams. Her lips shape words experimentally: "Candles. Ring. Rocking chair." From somewhere unexpected, "Benjamin. Lucy." She stops. There is a curious resonance to both those names. In pursuing Lucy, she stumbles too close to Those Memories, and pulls away. There are memories she's been avoiding, and she runs from them. Sometimes in her mind and sometimes on the street and sometimes both. She is afraid of names, for no reason she can articulate. While Lucy does not conjure up the terror of – some other names, it feels unusual.

She is near the docks. It's early, but sailors don't care about time of day. Perhaps there might be a glass of gin for her somewhere. She moves towards a young sailor, swaying a little, and unused to London. He is handsome, that one.

"Alms?" she begs, holding out her hand. "Alms, for a desperate woman?"

The boy looks discomfited, but gives her money. He seems acutely embarrassed by her other offer and his companion, when applied to, shoves her away. She doesn't mind; she's used to that by now. She up looks at him in time to see that he is tall and a little gaunt, with hard, light blue eyes. And that the hands at his belt are large and oddly graceful, with long fingers.

"Hey," she says, standing up. "Don't I know you, Mister?"

He pushes her again, with a wordless growl, and she stumbles. Changed, out of almost all recognition, if she does know him. She is not even sure about that anymore. 


	2. Johanna

This one's short. Oh well. In the last fifteen minutes, I have acquired the rights to Sweeney Todd in perpetuity, so the standard disclaimers do not, in fact, apply. I wish. Nope, I still don't own anything. Blame the insistence about names on too many fervent teachers, especially my drama teacher, who went on and on about the symbolism inherent in costume and names. Yay for Brechtian expression and interpretation. Anyway. That's neither here nor there. Criticism still vastly appreciated.

Later – a month, a week, she doesn't know, for she doesn't pay attention to time, she dreams another good dream. It has been a good day; someone gave her the money to buy soup and a little bread, only part stale. Belly closer to full than usual, she curls in a doorway at the end of Fleet Street and dreams.

She – or the dream woman she might be – holds a baby in her arms. It is a little less than a year old, and watches the world around it with fascination.

"She has her father's eyes," says a man's voice behind her.

The dream woman laughs. "They're so dark,' she says. "How can you be sure?"

"I know." There is a moment of silence for the man, the woman, and the baby. Then, "But she has her mother's chin. And hair, one day."

"I can't believe she's here," she says eventually, overwhelmed by the knowledge that this is _her_ child and _her_ family.

"Neither can I," says the man, his voice low in wonder. "But she is. And she's ours." She knows at that moment that this is where she wants to be: safe between husband and child in the warm candle-lit nest of family. "Johanna." He says the name like a benediction and reaches around the touch the child gently. "Our Johanna."

That afternoon she sees the sailor in Kearney's Lane, standing under a tree and staring, desperately, at the balcony of one of the grand houses. Curious, she looks up too, and sees a glimpse of a pale face and yellow hair and eyes that might be blue.

"Alms?" she says, holding out her bowl. Distracted, he gives her coins, then catches her arm.

"One moment, mother. Perhaps you know whose house this is?"

"That? That's the great Judge Turpin's house, that is." The name Turpin echoes through her mind like the slam of great iron gates, the two syllables reflecting off themselves, pounding around her head. _Tur-pin, Tur-pin_, until the original letters becomes lost, combining into a heavy sound made mostly from the "p" and the "t". It is a guttural sound, a heavy, sweaty, gasping grunt. The beggar woman begins to tremble, afraid of something she has forgotten.

The sailor doesn't seem to notice. He says politely, "And the young lady who resides there?"

"Ah, her." She wants to get away. She can feel the evil from the reverberations of the name and she is breathing faster. "That's Johanna, his pretty little ward." The girl's name echoes in her mind as well, but it has a different quality of consonants. The double "n" pulls the name out to a long, fragile thread like the squall of a newborn or a cry of despair. _Jo-ha-n-n-n-n-n-n-a_… She shivers again, the desperate sobs rising in her throat to echo the name. "But don't you go trespassing there, young man. Not if you value your hide. Tamper there and it's a good whipping for you – or any other youth with mischief on his mind…"

She goes through the motions of prostitution automatically and wanders away after the bird vendor. As her thoughts evaporate, cascading away like mist, something cries, desperately, the drawn out howl of _Jo-ha-n-n-n-n-n-n-a_, fading away to nothing behind her in the London smoke.


	3. Nellie Lovett

The history of the world, my sweet...is that the really good fics and fanfic never get found or reviewed, and it is a damn sad thing. So, if by any chance you find your way to my humble attempt at squallor and angst, I recommend that you read the work of my hugely talented reviewers. There are not many Sweeney fics on this site, but they are extremely high quality and deserve to be read; Nellie, apparently, loves you, but not very many people love Nellie (well, I do...she gave me a wonderful review!). That's not good, people, not good at all. Because you don't want to offend Nellie. Or Thessaly. Nellie and Sweeney can have the muscle and I'll take the entrails. Agreed? Agreed. Oh, and we all know of course that everybody goes down well with beer. Um, I can't write Mrs. Lovett very well. If you've got suggestions, please communicate them. And I don't own anything.

The house in Fleet Street becomes very busy. The beggar woman watches the Judge walk in and rush out. She watches the Italian walk in and never walk out. She watches the Sailor wander distracted.

And then comes the smoke, hot, black, acrid smoke with its stinging bite that sinks into her clothes and hair and clings for days. And, soon after that, the pie shop has customers. Lots of customers. The beggar woman tries the pies; they are good, perhaps, but to her they taste of smoke and ash from the ovens. She watches the two business partners: grim Todd and his garrulous landlady. She is afraid of the woman, but Todd intrigues her. There was something about him that snags on the floating thoughts in her mind when she sees him, and she wants to know more about him. And so she braves Mrs. Lovett's glares and Toby's awkward handling.

The night after one of these evictions, she dreams again.

She is lying face down on the bed and she is crying. It is evening and she has been lying here almost all day. She went out in the early afternoon, but since then she has been here, catatonic and desperate. The air around her is dead, mourning the songs of a happy, clever husband and the laughter of a delighted child. She feels betrayed, abandoned. And she hurts. They brought her home that morning – how odd, she thinks, those two words are so similar; morning and mourning. It was certainly a morning for mourning – and taken the child with them, leaving her in a haze of pain and confusion.

Someone touches her shoulder and she pulls away in revulsion, a shriek escaping her lips. Her throat is raw; she has been screaming. "It's just me, hen," the woman says, putting down a bowl. The landlady has blonde hair tending towards red and a touchy acquaintance with cleanliness. "I've brought you some soup," she says. She sounds gentle enough, with the motherly words and the broad accent. But she isn't; the woman knows that already. _Just say yes, hen, and he'll stop bothering you. And if he likes you, he'll pay your rent, too._ No, she does not like the landlady. But that too was in the past. Now, in the painful present there is something she wants. She is huddled against the wall. Slowly she uncurls and says, "Thank you," so quietly she can barely hear herself.

"You drink that up, and then come downstairs and we'll see what we can do for you. And no more of that," she pauses, searching for the right word, "silliness we talked about this morning, all right, love?" The landlady moves in to touch her again and she shrinks away.

Once the landlady has gone, she reaches into her dress for the packet she bought that morning. For vermin, the man at the counter told her. "The whole human race," she whispers. "We all deserve to die."

She drinks her soup with one small addition and tries to sleep before the pain hits. Better this pain than…the other kind. Better this than missing husband, daughter…Better this than last night…or loneliness….or existence…

The beggar woman wakes with echoes in her ears _Just say yes, hen_. She can feel evil coming from the pie shop with the smoke. Mrs. Lovett: a strange name, she thinks as she limps down towards the Strand. The first syllable – like "love" – yieldingly ironic, the second hard, finite, practical. The name is one downward chop with a cleaver, half a whistle through the air, half the ending _thunk_ as the cleaver strikes the cutting board.

It is Mrs. Lovett who keeps her from Sweeney Todd the barber, whom she would like to see again because of his eyes and his hands and his elusive familiarity. Mrs. Lovett who is behind the thick noxious smoke, Mrs. Lovett who, flaunting her newly-gotten trinkets, forgets that people watch. She distrusts Mrs. Lovett, hates Mrs. Lovett, is afraid of Mrs. Lovett.

She shakes her bowl. "Alms? Alms, for a desperate woman?" The thoughts slide fish-like through her mind and disappear again. She never remembers her dreams for very long – luxury is always fleeting. She retains only vague ideas, such as a distrust of Nellie Lovett.


	4. Lucy

This is very late; I had trouble with it. My apologies (and to lunarla, I say, You don't want Sweeney writer/I'd try something…lighter/At least./Stick to priest!). I still don't own anything, and blocking is courtesy John Doyle. Those of you who have seen the John Doyle production know that each death is signaled by a blast on a whistle. Sweeney, by contrast, dies with a sigh – quite a surprise after five or six whistles, and highly effective. Vive Artaud, vive Brecht!

The beggar woman is going madder as the days go by. She dreams quite a bit, but only of the mundane. Pots and pans and cooking in a little whitewashed room. Tossing flowers to a laughing baby, and kisses on cold winter nights. A hot meat pie and ale in a frosted glass. Once she dreams of doing intricate needlework: flowers and true-love knots, crochet work and fine lace made of snowflakes.

His lips brush the top of her head and he says, "What's that?"

"It's for our winter-born baby. Oh, Ben, I do hope it'll wait until January. It's dreadfully unlucky to be born in December!"

"Lucy, my love, our baby will be lucky no matter when it's born." He smiles. "It'll take after it's father. If it's a boy, he'll be rich and happy until he gets old, and then he'll have port and horrible gout like a gentleman. What do you think, sweet: shall we have lawyer for a son?"

She pouts. "And if it's a girl?"

He squeezes her hands. "Then she'll be twice as pretty as other little girls, with yellow hair and a voice like a songbird. And she'll have a father who loves her better than anyone else's." She believes him. He is very convincing.

Time gets a bit confused in her dreams, but they expand into a slice of real life. She realizes that things are rising to a climax, in the few minutes she has to consider that sort of thing. Tensions are higher and the dissonances match. The Lovett woman in Fleet Street is looking awful smart all of a sudden, with her basket and pretty hat. But she is brittle, pastry cooked too long in the oven and ready to crack from tension. She's hiding something, the beggar woman thinks one day as she circulates through a satiated crowd. But she rarely goes near the shop, and so the thought is pushed out of the way; another piece of flotsam in a flooded mind. Her dreams are superimposed on her waking life so that the fit is near true.

It is at a moment when no one – not the newly smart Lovett or the dissipated Todd with dark circles under his mad eyes, or the land-bound Sailor, or the pretty child forced to grow up, or the wandering madwoman who is rapidly becoming two people – is sure of past, present, or (most terrifying of all) future identities that someone is lazy at Fogg's. The lunatics escape, of course, and overrun the streets.

Huddled behind a barrel, the beggar woman watches them running free. In the midst of the chaos, she sees a young man with a familiar face, and beside him, a girl with long, tangled yellow hair. She is speaking to the boy very fast, and it is something elusive about the line of her chin, the way she stands, the wave of her well-made hands, that puts the beggar woman in mind of something. Sweeney. Sweeney Todd, the barber of Fleet Steet they call him, as though he were the only one on the street. She is not sure precisely what makes the decision for her, but she turns and goes towards Lovett's Pie Shop. She _needs_ to know; has to _see_ – something.

It is easy to get in. The door is unlocked and, in any case, she's quiet. She hears sounds echoing up from the basement, but she is not interested in down; she wants up. The tonsorial parlour is oddly familiar, though she feels that the table should be _there_, not under the window, and that there should be a bed where the large chest is. She tries not to see the enormous chair that dominates the room; she is not normally curious, and something about it is subtly wrong.

Her hair falls about her shoulders, lank, scraggly, and dirty. Downstairs, a door slams. She goes to the window and the dream woman draws closer. A step on the stairs – "he's home," a thought not recognizably hers. Then the door opens.

"What in _hell_?" says a harsh voice and a long-fingered, strong hand clamps her shoulder. Ah, pain. That belongs to one reality more than the other. It helps define her world, for the moment. Confused again, she whimpers and struggles, weakly. She's never been good at evasion, although she doesn't like being touched.

He puts the other arm around her waist, roughly, to keep her from running. "How did you get in here?"

Dreamlike, she lets the other woman move for her, and touches his hand, unwrapping it to see those long fingers. They are calloused, broken, warped, but one of her remembers them.

Mouth dry as two different minds snap together into a moment of perfect linearity, she can't find anything else to say but her parrot-call, "Hey, don't I know you, Mister?"

His eyes skate over her dirty face and he says desperately, "I have no _time_," as if he hadn't spent twenty years with too much of it. He moves, and something caresses her throat, stings a little. The beggar woman is surprised for she is not used to kindnesses. Lucy, who believes them her due, is happy to be back in the arms where she belongs.

Bright red, the colour of joy or laughter or sorrow blossoms in her vision; their hands, still twisted together, are spattered with the same colour. She thinks of the clasped hands at a wedding ceremony. She says something – a drawn out "e": Swe-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ny, and when her head falls forward, voices and dreams finally, finally silent, it is with the muted _thud_ of Tod-d-d.

The barber doesn't notice this at the time. He has other things on his mind. It is only later, holding a filthy, gory body in his bloody hands that he remembers the way she died. In his arms. By his hand, yes, but given what had happed to her already the razor was almost an afterthought. "Lucy," he moans, holding the shell of what may have, once, been his Lucy. "My sweet, beautiful Lucy." His face is buried in her hair. "My reason and my life," he whispers. He has just killed his wife. Every lawyer in London would agree that he had no reason, nor had ever done. There is, then, no reason (which he already lacks) why he should have life. "Lu-u-u-u-u-u-c-y-y-y-y-y," he cries. He remembers her going limp in his arms. Odd how their names should be so suited to distress. He shouts again but no one is going to hear him. The Lovett roasts in her own oven, a form of poetic justice he could have done without, no matter how tidy it is, and Toby is missing. The long vowels stretch the woman's name forward and backwards at once. It is a little girl's name, a fragile little girl who needs to be taken care of. "Johanna" has some self-sufficiency to it, he thinks bitterly. It's the "h." But "Lucy"? No. "Lucy" is a name made of soft vowels and sweetnesses. A refined name, almost. Something artlessly pretty. Something she isn't anymore, but deserved to be.

Sweeney Todd, Benjamin Barker, the Barber of Fleet Street stands up and carries the body of his wife to the oven. It's just a body, after all. He's seen a lot of those. Even the blood has gone brown now and that brilliant, lovely red is corrupted by exposure to air. He watches her burn without much emotion and finds himself wondering what happens now.

At the rustle he looks around. Toby lurks in the corner. Ah, Toby. Another waif's name, dragged out far longer than necessary by the final "y." The boy looks half crazed, his hair pale and a box in his shaking hands. Todd knows that box and he doesn't move as the boy takes out one of those lovely silver razors and advances. The Barber leans over and corrects the boy's hold, then waits for the sting. It hurts, but everything does these days. The last to die, he does it quietly, with the softest puff of air that might have been, if Toby were at this point sane enough to pay attention, a whispered, "Lu-u-u-u-u-c-y-y-y-y."


End file.
